Judith Arndt won the silver medal in the women's time trial and Marcel Kittel the bronze medal in the U23 time trial at the World Championships in Australia. This gave the German a good start to the event that ends on Sunday with the men's road race.
According to Arndt her silver could also be booked as a lost gold medal. After bronze in 2008 and silver in 2003 and 2004, she finally wanted to win. "So I am disappointed," she said after the race. "It is not that I couldn't be happy over silver. But I would have liked to win," Arndt said to rad-net.de.
At least, she didn't lose by a small margin - the 15 seconds that Emma Pooley had gained at the end of the 22.8 kilometers were quite decisive - which can't be said for Arndt's gap to third placed Linda Melanie Villumsen. Arndt had 63 hundredths of a second in the end to take home the silver medal.
For Kittel there was no question, he was absolutely thrilled with his third place, 24 seconds behind Taylor Phinney. "The race went very well," he said after the 31.8 kilometers, which he raced in 43'14. "I had really good legs, everything went right and I am glad I didn't have a mechanical. I am absolutely happy with bronze. I couldn't do more."
Kittel started conservatively on the hard course and was 14th at the first time check, 37 seconds behind Luke Durbridge (who finished second eventually). Kittel was still 36 seconds behind at the second check, but already in fifth place. He trailed Nélson Oliveira by three seconds in the race for bronze at the last check. With a good effort, he passed the Portuguese rider to beat Oliveira by four seconds.
Kittel had a bad crash that cost him a lot of the season. "After the way the year went this is a really good ending. After all, I couldn't race for six weeks and I could not ride a bike at all for two weeks."
Kittel will move over to the professionals, with the Skil-Shimano team next year. "This was my last race in the U23 category and it is wonderful to move to the pros with a medal, something I so closely missed last year." In the time trial in Mendrisio Kittel finished fourth, seven seconds behind compatriot Patrick Gretsch. The latter is now with the HTC Columbia team.
Coach Patrick Moster was also quite happy with Kittel's performance. "He measured himself very well on this technical course. The first four were within 30 seconds. That shows that he really does belong to the best time trialers. Given that the course didn't really suit him, this result ranks really high."